Page 72 of Keep

Frannie’s voice came through the phone, tinny and distant: “Hank? Hank, are you there?”

CHAPTER 12

Chad had seen the photograph a dozen times by noon. It was everywhere—Twitter, Instagram, the Post website, a gossip blog Ricky had texted him with a string of shocked emojis. Every time he thought he’d stopped looking, his thumb would find its way back to the screen, back to that image of two men walking hand in hand across a rain-slicked plaza. He barely recognized himself. The guy in the charcoal blazer looked happy. Relaxed. Completely unaware that his life was about to implode.

The rain hadn’t let up since the night before. It streaked down the windows of the apartment, turning the world outside into a gray blur. Chad sat on his bed with his knees pulled up to his chest, phone in hand, watching the notifications pile up. Texts from classmates. A message from Blake asking if he was okay. Three missed calls from a number he’d memorized but hadn’t saved—couldn’t save, because what would he even put as the contact name? Senator? Hank? The man whose career I just torpedoed?

His mother would have seen it by now. Manassas wasn’t far, and Celia Ellsworth had never met a piece of gossip she didn’t devour with her morning coffee. She’d have seen her son’s face—blurry, half-turned, but recognizable—and she’d have known. And she wouldn’t call. Hadn’t called in two years, wasn’t about to start now. That silence, at least, was familiar.

“You need to eat something,” Ricky said from the doorway.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You’ve been staring at your phone for hours. It’s not healthy.”

“Thank you, Dr. Ricardo. I’ll take it under advisement.”

Ricky crossed his arms. “Has he called?”

“Three times.”

“Are you going to call him back?”

Chad looked at the phone in his hand—another missed call from Hank, the notification joining the others like a growing accusation. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“How about ‘hello’? It’s customary.”

“His career is—” Chad stopped. Started again. “We had rules. Forty-eight days. Keep it private until after the election. And I knew why. I’ve been out since I was seventeen—nobody cares who I sleep with. But him?” He shook his head. “He’s been hiding his whole life, and I knew the stakes weren’t the same for both of us, and I let it happen anyway. Because it felt normal. Because I forgot, for one stupid second, that he couldn’t afford normal.” He tossed the phone onto the bed. “What am I supposed to say? Sorry, I forgot your career was on the line. Want to grab dinner?”

Ricky was quiet for a moment. Then he crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

“You don’t know it’s ruined.”

“He’s a Republican senator from Georgia. A closeted one. Was closeted.” Chad laughed, but there was nothing in it. “You think his constituents are going to be fine with this? You think the party’s going to rally around him?”

“I think you’re doomscrolling out loud.”

“I think I’m being realistic.”

“Those aren’t always different things.” Ricky reached over and squeezed his knee. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I know how politics works. But I know you. And I know that hiding in your room isn’t going to fix anything.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m processing.”

“You’re hiding.” Ricky stood. “I’m making grilled cheese. You’re eating it. Non-negotiable.”

He disappeared down the hall, and Chad heard the clatter of pans in the kitchen. He picked up his phone again, stared at the missed calls, and set it back down.

The photograph stared up at him from the lock screen—he’d screenshotted it without meaning to, some masochistic impulse he couldn’t explain. Two men. Hand in hand. One of them looking at the other like he was the only thing in the world that mattered.

That was the worst part. Not that someone had taken the picture, not that it had been published, but that anyone who looked at it could see exactly how Hank felt. It was written all over his face. That unguarded tenderness—Hank had spent his whole life hiding, and in one unguarded moment, the camera had captured everything he’d kept behind glass.

And it was Chad’s fault. He was the one who’d reached for Hank’s hand—or hadn’t stopped Hank from reaching for his—because it felt good, felt right, felt like something they both deserved. And he’d forgotten, just for a moment, that Hank was the one who’d pay for it.

Forty-eight days of discretion, Hank had said. Then dinner in public.

They hadn’t even made it twenty-one.

Chad didn’t call Hank back that day. Or the next.